Platforms in Everything: Analyzing Ground-Truth Data on the Anatomy and Economics of Bullet-Proof Hosting

Conference paper (2019)

Authors

A. Noroozian Organisation & Governance - TPM
Jan Koenders Dutch National High-Tech Crime Unit
Eelco van Veldhuizen Dutch National High-Tech Crime Unit
C. Hernandez Ganan Organisation & Governance - TPM
Sumayah Alrwais King Saud University
Daniel T. McCoy New York University
M.J.G. van Eeten Organisation & Governance - TPM
Research Group
Organisation & Governance (TPM) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2019 A. Noroozian, Jan Koenders, Eelco van Veldhuizen, C. Hernandez Ganan, Sumayah Alrwais, Damon McCoy, M.J.G. van Eeten
Security Network Security Bullet-proof hosting Web Security
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Published Date

2019

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Technology, Policy and Management

Department

Multi Actor Systems

Research Group

Organisation & Governance

Abstract

This paper presents the first empirical study based on ground-truth data of a major Bullet-Proof Hosting (BPH) provider, a company called Maxided. BPH allows miscreants to host criminal activities in support of various cybercrime business models such as phishing, botnets, DDoS, spam, and counterfeit pharmaceutical websites. Maxided was legally taken down by law enforcement and its backend servers were seized. We analyze data extracted from its backend databases and connect it to various external data sources to characterize Maxided's business model, supply chain, customers and finances. We reason about what the ``inside'' view reveals about potential chokepoints for disrupting BPH providers. We demonstrate the BPH landscape to have further shifted from agile resellers towards marketplace platforms with an oversupply of resources originating from hundreds of legitimate upstream hosting providers. We find the BPH provider to have few choke points in the supply chain amendable to intervention, though profit margins are very slim, so even a marginal increase in operating costs might already have repercussions that render the business unsustainable. The other intervention option would be to take down the platform itself.